The pilot of The Big Bang Theory first aired on September 24, 2007. Directed by James Burrows. Written by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, the show's creators.
Sheldon (Jim Parsons) backs out of making a deposit at a sperm bank because he worries he's committing some kind of fraud, as there's no guarantee his offspring will be as intelligent as he is. So he and his roommate, Leonard (Johnny Galecki) just leave.
Back home, Leonard is pleasantly surprised that Penny (Kaley Cuoco) has moved into apartment 4B, across the hall from their apartment 4A. As a welcome, Leonard invites Penny to eat some take-out at 4A. Penny learns that Leonard and Sheldon are "beautiful mind genius guys." And they learn that she's a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory.
Penny's been having some trouble with the shower in her apartment, so Leonard lets her use the shower in their apartment. Also Penny asks Leonard to retrieve her TV from the apartment of her ex-boyfriend, Kurt (Brian Patrick Wade). Leonard goes, taking Sheldon along. They come back without Penny's TV and without their pants.
While Leonard and Sheldon were away, Howard (Simon Helberg) and Raj (Kunal Nayyar) show up at 4A just as Penny comes out of the shower. Howard tries to charm Penny, and Penny tries to talk to Raj, but Raj won't say anything. Penny wonders if Raj can speak English. Howard explains that Raj can speak English but he can't speak to women, because "he's kind of a nerd."
When Leonard and Sheldon return, Penny hugs them and decides to make it up to them by buying them and Howard and Raj dinner at a restaurant. The five of them go, with Leonard driving, Sheldon in the front passenger seat and Penny in the backseat between an enthusiastic Howard and a helplessly mute Raj.
Leonard declares that "Our babies will be smart and beautiful." Sheldon, rather than encourage Leonard, responds "Not to mention imaginary."
Tropes
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Kurt, Penny's Jerkass ex-boyfriend.
- The Artifact: Sheldon's description of his board does not match the formulas written on it. This line is a holdover from the unaired pilot, in which Sheldon's board contained exactly what he described.
- Burger Fool:
- Sheldon complains that he's ashamed of having a Fuddruckers hostess for a sister.
- Penny admits she's one as well but instead of Fuddruckers it's Cheesecake Factory.
- Chaos Architecture: The view of Penny's appartment in this episode does not match its architecture established in next episode (especially obvious if compared with a homage to this shot in Season 5's "The Recombination Hypothesis") .
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: Leonard and Sheldon come back from Kurt without their pants.
- Deadpan Snarker: Both Leonard and Sheldon have their moments.
- Defector from Commie Land: Parodied. Joyce Kim defected back to North Korea, supposedly in response to Leonard being such a terrible boyfriend. In "The Staircase Implementation", she is Retconned into having been a Fake Defector who was Honey Trapping Leonard. Thankfully they don't go very deep into the backstory, so in hindsight, it just comes off as Leonard still being embarrassed about having been led on by Joyce Kim not knowing she was a spy.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Most of the guy's reactions upon meeting Penny. Especially when they see fresh from the shower in just a towel.
- Door Dumb: When Leonard and Sheldon go to Penny's ex boyfriends apartment to get something back from him for her, their first challenge is the building door. While boasting about how high their collective IQ is, a pair of Girl Scouts simply hit the buzzer to be let into the building.Sheldon: What do you think their collective IQ is?
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Sheldon is slightly more socially adept, seems to flirt with Penny at one point (along with recognizing Leonard's attraction to her), and masturbates, unlike the asexual, awkward character he becomes later in the series.
- Sheldon is much more deferential to Leonard. While Sheldon seems to have all his familiar compulsions, Leonard is able to keep Sheldon more or less in line with a firm word.
- Penny is much more of a Dumb Blonde and Brainless Beauty in the pilot. Future episodes would show her having normal levels of intelligence and being much more socially adept, being only Book Dumb when compared to the guys. She's also much less of a Deadpan Snarker here than in later episodes, though this at least can be explained away as her just wanting to be polite to her new neighbors (and spending years dealing with Sheldon Cooper would turn anyone into a snarker).
- The word "coitus" is mostly used by Howard. Sheldon would be the one to use it in following episodes.
- On the technical side, the image in this episode is rather grainy, as if it was shot on high-speed film. Rest assured all the other episodes have better image quality.
- Establishing Character Moment: Several, which would be developed as the series progressed.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction:Penny: I’m a vegetarian, oh, except for fish, and the occasional steak, I love steak.
- Ms. Fanservice: Penny wearing only a Modesty Towel in Leonard's apartment. Fan Disservice is discussed when Leonard points out the last woman to take off her clothes in the apartment was his grandmother.
- Noodle Incident: Two examples
- On their way back to the apartment after the failed sperm bank enterprise, Sheldon alludes to experiments during his childhood, with his father breaking his clavicle as a result of an experiment with stair height ratios- apparently most people trip if the distance between two steps is off by over two millimetres-, and some unspecified work with lasers getting him sent to boarding school.
- And after Penny accepts Leonard’s invitation to use their shower when hers isn’t working, we hear the following exchange:Sheldon: Well, this is an interesting development.
Leonard: How so?
Sheldon: It has been some time since we’ve had a woman take her clothes off in our apartment.
Leonard: That’s not true. Remember Thanksgiving, when my grandmother with Alzheimer’s had that episode?
Sheldon: Point taken. It has been some time since we’ve had a woman take her clothes off after which we didn’t want to rip our eyes out.
Leonard: The worst part was watching her carve that turkey.
- Shout-Out:
- To Battlestar Galactica: Leonard and Sheldon already watched the Season 2 DVDs, but Sheldon insists they must watch them again with commentary.
- To A Beautiful Mind: Becoming aware of Sheldon's high IQ, Penny asks "So you're like one of those beautiful mind genius guys?"
- To MySpace: According to Leonard, Sheldon has 212 friends on the still active social media platform, none of whom he has met in person. That's the way Sheldon wants to keep it.
- To Star Wars: Leonard has Star Wars-themed hair care products: Darth Vader shampoo and Luke Skywalker conditioner.
- This Is My Chair: Sheldon's "spot" on the couch is first established here, with Sheldon giving a thorough rationale for it.
- Western Zodiac: Penny's a Sagittarius, which she thinks says a lot about her, even though a lot of people think she's a water sign (one of Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces). Of course Sheldon thinks astrology's nonsense and says so.
- Write What You Know, in-universe: Penny's working on a screenplay about a young woman from Lincoln, Nebraska, who goes to Los Angeles to become an actress but is currently a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory. But Penny's own experience is completely different: she's from Omaha.
